This article is updated with new developments.
The Trump government campaign to reduce the federal civil service seemed ready to affect one of the crown jewels of global public health on Friday. Members of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, a legendary training program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were warned on Friday morning that most of them were about to be dismissed, two people with knowledge of the meeting told Stat.
The 135 members of the two-year EIS program were informed that most of them would hear their resignation against the late day. But the notifications did not come on Friday or Saturday, different sources said, so these employees were not sure whether their jobs were safe, or whether the bad news was yet to come.
For members of a smaller sister program aimed at training laboratory workers, the notifications of termination on Saturday, a source told Stat. Most members of the Laboratory Leadership Service Received e -mails that inquired that they were released because they were not suitable for continuous employment at the CDC. Several of the fellows that were of the program in the second year had already offered jobs at the desk, the source said.
“These are very impressive guys with very impressive CVs. These are the best of the best, “said the source, and noted that, just like the requirement officers, the LLS -Fellows are part of the Rapid Response team of the CDC, sent to the field when outbreaks of diseases have to be are restricted.
The CDC was informed at the beginning of Friday that about 1,270 people would be terminated by the end of the day. Later a revised list of 750 people was received, one source said; Again, the word was that notifications of shooting would go out on Friday, maybe in the evening. Some employees were informed of their resignation on Saturday. It is currently not clear how many termination messages had received, and how much more would come.
All sources with which Stat spoke for this story spoke on condition that they were not identified because they were not authorized to publicly talk about the situation. The agency has not officially commented on the reports of mass seals.
In the case of the requirement and the Laboratory Training Program, the CDC was informed that there would be some exceptions to the dismissals: people participating in the public health service and military officers who participated in the CDC staff before entering the program. These two groups are only a quarter of the current selection of requirements officers and a small number of LLS -Fellows.
The requirement Is the world’s most important training program for applied epidemiology. Many public health leaders on the CDC and elsewhere in the world have graduates from the requirement, founded in 1951 by the then chief epidemiologist Alexander Langmuir of the CDC, partly because of the concern about the Cold War about the threat of germ warning.
Eis officers form the front line in emergency situations on public health, both in the United States and abroad. When a difficult outbreak of diseases occurs, the requirements officers are sent, when state health departments need help in tracing the source of diseases transferred by food. They were one of the first responds then Letters drove on with Anthrax were sent to legislators and news broadcasts throughout the country in 2001. They were even depicted on the big screen: in the Steven Soderbergh Movie Contagion 2011, about the start of a pandemic disease that had unknowingly transported an American businesswoman to Minneapolis.
“For more than 70 years, demand officers in America’s front line have served as its disease detectives, ready to protect Americans by responding to emerging outbreaks here in the US and all over the world,” said former CDC director Tom Frieden , who is president and CEO of the non-profit decides to save lives.
“The loss of this next generation of highly qualified leaders will make our nation – and the world – less safe and less prepared to prevent, detect and respond.”
The fact that cutbacks can decimate a program that has repeatedly proven its value is surprised many in the world of public health.
“This will destroy the requirement, one of the absolute crown jewels of global public health,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Research and Policy of the University of Minnesota.
Members of the requirement are highly trained experts – people with Ph.DS and medical degrees form the majority of the requirements, although veterinarians, pharmacists and nurses with advanced degrees also belong to the members. Many stay at the office after their requirement training; Others join the Public Health departments.
“It was in the epidemic intelligence service that I fell in love with public health and saw firsthand the power it had to save lives and protect health,” said Richard Besser, who went from the requirement to the CDC and acting was the director at the beginning of the 2009 H1N1 Flu Pandemic.
“As a requirement officer I worked to protect our country against cholera spread all over the world. I investigated an outbreak of E. coli who has children admitted to the hospital in Massachusetts and identified polluted apple cider as the perpetrator; That investigation stopped the outbreak and probably saved lives, “said Besser, who is now president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “Cutting this program means that we do not believe in public health and how it can improve the lives of people here and around the world. That is frightening. “
Some requirement alumni come from other countries; The training helps Health Ministies abroad to develop the skills of their employees. Former CDC director Bill Foege noted that during the Catastrophic West African Ebola outbreak of 2014-2016 spread to Nigeria-the most densely populated country of Africa Was restricted in the help of people who had trained in the requirement.
“It is almost unreasonable,” Foege said about the news when he was approached by Stat. ‘When I hear we’re leaving [the World Health Organization] Or leave the Paris [Climate] Agreement, we cut out the requirement – a chill goes on my spine. Because I realize that we are dealing with people who are in a different reality. They don’t understand public health. They do not understand what it was like to encounter the dangers of the past. ”
Eis officers are adopted under Title 42, a mechanism that enables the federal government to bring the best and the smartest, in some cases they pay at rates higher than the typical wages in the public sector. It offers employees fewer vacancies, making title 42 employees easier to dismiss.
One of the many alums of the program, which is still at the CDC and asked for not to be mentioned, said that the health of Americans will be negatively influenced by these cuts.
“The actions that have so far been taken by the administration against the federal workforce have already dramatically reduced the capacity of CDC to respond adequately, on the way Americans earn, to emerging threats of public health,” the person said. “And cutting requirement will make Americans and global populations less safe in the coming years.”
Have you been hit by shooting at federal health authorities?
*Required